“…any food product that feels compelled to tell you it’s natural in all likelihood is not.”—-Michael Pollan

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Natural Wines of Splooge Estate

Thank you for joining Ejaculate™,
the Wine Club here at Splooge Estate and Winery. You’ll be receiving your first
load in the next few weeks, but I wanted to thank you for joining, and outline
the many benefits of your Ejaculate™
membership. As you know, Splooge Estate is an organic estate and all of our
wines are natural wines. We take every precaution to insure that every Splooge
is as natural and as satisfying as it can be. It just tastes better that way.

We’re happy that you’ve joined Ejaculate™ at the highest level, the Mother Load. Four times a year
you’ll be receiving a Mother Load of our natural wines. We know you’ll enjoy
tasting each and every Ejaculate™
selection, but, rest assured, should you feel that a Splooge is not to your
taste, just spit it out and we will happily replace it. That’s our Splooge
guarantee.

Your June Mother Load will consist of the three latest
Splooge releases:

2011 Splooge “Spray of Pink” Rosé of Pinot Noir

Our natural pink wine is produced from our estate Pinot Noir
grapes that are harvested by hand, not using any sharp tools that might harm
the stems. Harvesting with grape knives is cruel and painful for grapes.
Splooge grapes are harvested by gently twisting each cluster until it gently
falls into the fur-lined harvesting basket. Our Rosé is carefully bled from our
finest lots of Pinot Noir and then fermented at very cold temperatures using
local nuns who sit on the barrels. Serve it chilled with our local bivalves. A
recipe for “Splooge’s Famous Cloister Oysters” is included with your Mother
Load shipment. For all we care, you can go shuck yourself.

2010 Splooge Estate Pinot Noir “Dos Huevos Vineyard”

We know that you expect your Splooge to be handled with the
greatest care. We never use pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides in our
vineyards. In fact, we basically ignore our vineyards altogether in order to
make the most natural wine possible. We do occasionally walk through the
vineyard waving pruning shears, but that’s just to let the vines know we mean
business. Our vines are intimidated naturally, not by modern methods that harm
them psychologically, like pruning and leaf-pulling or suckering. Ever been
suckered? Yes, you have. You joined a wine club.

2010 Splooge Rouge

Splooge grows five different red grape varieties. Well, last
time we checked it was five. We don’t really look that often, that’s unnatural.
Each of the five (?) varieties is harvested individually. Most are gently
twisted from the vines, but we let the Zinfandel fall to the ground when it’s
ready. We’ve found that the Zinfandel vines are most comfortable when they
decide when their fruit is ready. The grapes are gently picked up, placed in
canvas bags from Whole Foods (this makes the grapes feel self-important), and
then placed in our specially designed bamboo fermenting bins. Our Splooge Rouge
is for when you just feel like Splooging after a long day at work.

Your Ejaculate™
membership has many benefits:

Free Tour of the Splooge Estate (normally $30/person)

One of Splooge Estate Tasting Room Jerkoffs™ will take you
and up to five guests on a walking tour of Splooge Estate, explaining the
natural way we grow and produce wine. Because we are natural wine producers, this
is a clothing optional tour, so wear plenty of sunscreen and put a muzzle on
your friendly dog. Along the way you’ll visit our world-famous compost heap,
where we not only make our own compost, but we use the internal heat generated
to bake our famous Splooge bread! Depending upon what’s available in the
garden, your friendly Jerkoff™ may instruct you in how to eat an all-natural
shit sandwich! At Splooge Estate, as part of our commitment to nature, we also
cultivate rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes help control the rodent population, as
well as helping to supply the compost heap with local winery dogs. Except in
the winter months, you’re likely to see many of our Splooge Snakes. Just don’t
get bit on yours!

Discounts at our many Splooge Events

Our Splooge Estate Events are all about having fun
naturally. We put on many events over the course of a vintage, and as a Mother
Load Splooger, you are given a sizeable discount. We know that our Sploogers
enjoy many strokes, and we deliver! Events change in any given year, but there
are certain events, the ones that are the most popular with our Ejaculate™ Members, that are held
annually. Don’t miss the Splooge Native Yeast Festival in August! The featured
entertainer is Miss Sugar, a local ecdysiast, and guests are encouraged to
dress as their favorite yeast and try to convert Miss Sugar to alcohol. Miss Sugar
loves the native yeasts and converts easily. Those who are cultured she can
barely stand. Needless to say, there’s plenty of Splooge on hand for everyone
to enjoy. You’ll also want to save the date in May for our “Unnatural Wines
Suck” Celebration. Compare our latest Splooge Estate releases to wines that are
not naturally made and discover the difference for yourself. Our neighbors’
wines might taste better, they might have less bottle variation, but our
natural wines are wines as God intended them to be—punishment for your sins.

And, finally, our natural wines’ finest benefit

The smugness of knowing you’re full of Splooge

Natural wines are simply better. Natural wonders are
better than other wonders, right? Natural foods are better than other foods—only
the disenfranchised and poor eat foods that aren’t natural—coincidence? I don’t
think so. The only wines that have any meaning are natural wines. Just ask the
people who make them. Wine is not made to be enjoyed. Every wine you consume is
a political statement, no more, no less. And your membership in Ejaculate™ proves that above all you
value everything else over taste.

As Samantha can attest, I am fascinated with the process of writing. And since this is my blog, I get to bore everyone with my thoughts on the subject.

The original idea for this piece was to lampoon the ubiquitous wine club, a thought inspired by a post that my friend Tom Wark wrote on Sermontation. The club name, Ejaculate, just popped out--you'll pardon the expression. And then Splooge Estate followed. It just jumped out of my brain, and it made me laugh, so I kept going.

But as I wrote, the piece became about "natural" wines. I like to judge wine as wine, it's really good or it's really not, so I think "natural" wine is a category meant to jerk off consumers. It capitalizes on the current, and important, societal consciousness about being "green," but much of what is written about it is bogus and misleading, and intentionally so. What else is new?

Before my very eyes the piece morphed from a tirade about wine clubs into talking about natural wines as a marketing gimic. I'm thrilled that any winemaker can make wine any damn way he pleases, and the smaller the environmental impact, the better. But the sudden rise of "natural" wine (or "authentic" wine--an even stupider adjective) has been seized upon and rendered meaningless by marketing people eager to sell wine and wine writers eager to sell books. They're all jerking us, and each other, off.

There's been a lot of talk about marketing wine to women with labels like Skinnygirl, and how odious that is. Isn't that really what "natural" wine is about, a way to market wine to women? The nurturers? Wine to nourish the soul, to transport you to a better time when the Earth wasn't ruined by their fathers?

Every time I call to join Ejaculate, Splooge Estate just gives me the back and forth. I end up giving up before I can secure a current release. I can't say I'm a satisfied customer. Help me, HoseMaster!

Terrific satire and a nice rant here in the comments, Ron. I couldn't agree more. There is nothing 'natural' about wine to start with.

"I have an idea! I'm going to rip out all the natural flora and fauna from this here hillside. Then I'm going to use cuttings from plants that were selectively bred back on the continent where they came from and plant them in a manner in which they would never survive or even attempt to grow in the wild. I will selectively prune these plants and twist them into growing how I want on some wires. I will then prune off the fruit I don't want in order to only get the best fruit from these plants. When the time comes I'll select the best of what is left and put it in more natural environments like steel and wooden barrels so that the fruit will avoid its mission of seed delivery. A magical beverage will be created that might possibly occur in nature if some grapes fell into a rock depression and remained there avoid insects and other hungry creatures until it attained an alcohol level somewhere below 14% and was stumbled upon by a benevolent man who spoke a language of Latin roots and sang it's praises to wide eyed denizens of Manhattan seeking the truth in their consumption habits. I will hear their sanctimony and lack of wine making knowledge in order to help me call my creation 'natural wine'."

I'm afraid I'm not feeling the need to help you with your Splooge issues. Sorry, my hands are tied.

Cris,

Thanks. And thanks for chiming in. Nice to have the lurkers voice an opinion now and then.

There's a whole industry of folks promoting "natural" wines now--writers, importers, wine shops, restaurants--and plenty of suckers who want to feel better about themselves and drink only those wines. It's hooey. "Authentic" isn't much better. Wines can certainly be overmanipulated, and they can also be undermanipulated--but they are all manipulated and about as natural as the clothes we wear.

This was definitely one of those 'do not drink while reading' posts unless you want coffee or wine squirting out your nose during a guffaw.

Lawdy, I do hate "Authentic" this 'n' that 'cuz they never are as soon as you feel the need to use the adjective. (Sigh.)

Dear HoseMaster - The Ejaculate(tm) wine club immediately made me think of a certain Danish winery's proprietary red blend name over here this side of county line. (I won't name names here in public, but it does sound oh, so pretentious!)

I think you've summarized "Authentic" as well as anyone. A HoseMaster "Comment of Merit" for you!

I keep thinking I should create some categories for the HoseMaster's Poodle Awards (some that I previously listed), and take nominations. I spent a few minutes at the Wine Blog Awards website scrolling through the current nominations (yikes, I was nominated--like that'll happen) and clicking on some unfamiliar links. WOW! Who says talent isn't dead?

As an aside, when I wrote this piece I was sure it would be a flop. But I liked its rhythm and weirdness. And I am always a horrible judge. So I painfully hit the "Publish" tab. The world, I decided, runs on Splooge.

Just heard back from a few folks in the Canadian wine industry. Many thought it was spot on, and they winced and cringed (sort of like "Curb Your Enthusiasm") -- too true a story. Others thought that a hacker had taken over my account, and gave me sympathy (not money). One said: "Apparently, my winery needs to be more cutting edge..."

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About Me

After 19 years as a Sommelier in Los Angeles, twice named Sommelier of the Year by the Southern California Restaurant Writers' Association, I moved to Sonoma County to explore the other aspects of the wine business. I've spent, OK wasted, 35 years learning about and teaching about and swallowing wine. I am also a judge at the Sonoma Harvest Fair, San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and the San Francisco International Wine Competition--so I can spit like a rabid llama. I know more about wine than David Sedaris and I'm funnier than James Laube. Stay tuned for an informed but jaded view of everything wine and everything else.
I'm living proof that alcohol kills brain cells.

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